china dominates the world's solar panel market. 80% of the world's solar panels are made here. and taylor swift fans are in a frenzy after her new album appears to leak ahead of its official release. voice-over: live from our studio in singapore, - this is bbc news. it's newsday. hello and welcome to the programme. we begin with the conflict in the middle east and the united states has vetoed a request to the united nations security council to grant the palestinians full un member status.

the us, a permanent member of the security council, argued that an independent palestinian state should be established through direct negotiations between israel and the palestinian authority and not through un action. we also have long been clear that premature actions here in new york, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the palestinian people. as members of the security council, we have a special responsibility to ensure that our actions further the cause of international peace and security and are consistent with the requirements for the un charter. as reflected in the report of the admission committee, there was not unanimity among committee members as to whether the applicant met the criteria for membership. the palestinian authority has had observer status but cannot vote in proceedings. of the 15 council members, 12 voted yes. the two remaining, britain and switzerland, abstained. we agree that the people of the west bank and gaza must be given the political perspective

of a credible route to a palestinian state and a new future. and it needs to be irreversible. this is not entirely in our gift but our recognition of a palestinian state should be part of it. we believe that such recognition of palestinian statehood should not come at the start of a new process. but it doesn't have to be at the very end of the process. our north america correspondent john sudworth is at the united nations where the vote took place, and sent us this report. yeah, there's been a long day of speeches here at the united nations. passionately held positions on both sides. the palestinian representative saying that granting palestine full membership status would give hope to the palestinian people. a response from the israeli ambassador here saying that six months on from the hamas attacks, it would simply be a reward for terror.

now, the us position, as you say, has long been known. it argues that granting palestine full status would be premature, that it should not come ahead of a negotiated settlement, a bilateral agreement between palestine and israel. but nonetheless, although that was the us position, it was clear that it did not want, if it could possibly avoid it, to have to do what it did today. there are reports of pretty intense lobbying behind the scenes. the us would have liked to have got this vote delayed or even better had other members come on board to help defeat it. but in the end, what's remarkable is 12 of the 15 members of the security council voted in favor, including some pretty key us allies — japan, south korea and france. and that forced the us ambassador robert wood, to raise that hand, issuing the veto and killing the proposal. to raise that hand, issuing

the veto and killing the proposal. but not only that, some critics would say once again exposing how isolated the us is becoming on the international stage over this issue. meanwhile, the united nations secretary—general has again warned that the war in gaza has put the region on the precipice of a full—scale regional conflict. alluding to iran's attack on israel, he said recent days had seen a perilous escalation. antonio guterres called for restraint on all sides. he also criticised israel's military offensive in gaza saying it had created a "humanitarian hellscape". in recent days, i've seen a perilous escalation in words and deeds. one miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake could lead to the unthinkable — a full—scale regional conflict that will be devastating for all involved and for the rest of the world. the moment of maximum peril must be a time for maximum restraint.

the united states and britain have announced new sanctions on iran, targeting the country's drone aircraft production after its attack on israel last weekend. the us treasury department said the sanctions were against 16 individuals and two firms that produce the engines of iran's shahed drones, which were used in the attack, along with missiles. tensions in the region remain high with israel's prime minister insisting his country will make its own decisions about how to respond to iran's drone and missile attack. israel's western allies fear striking back against iran could trigger a broader war. i spoke tojean—loup samaan from the middle east institute of the national university of singapore. i asked him if the latest diplomatic action to deter iran and placate israel is enough to stop any further military escalations. no, unfortunately, i don't think economic sanctions

will do more thanjust reinforce the diplomatic, the symbolic pressure on iran. the reason is that iran is already under comprehensive —— under a comprehensive regime of sanctions and a lot of the missiles, the drones that iran has been using do not need the access to the western economy, so those sanctions are unlikely to change the behaviour or the ability of iran to either put the pressure on israel directly — like we saw a week ago — or indirectly through its forces in the region. so, sanctions don't work then, the un sec gen is warning against any action that could tip the entire region into chaos — that has got to factor into israel's calculations as they look to respond to last week's attack by iran, hasn't it? yes, it seems so far the israelis are postponing the moment where they decide on the type of retaliation against iran.

i don't think they will not do anything. i think there will be something. the question is the nature of the retaliation. are we talking about air strikes or possibly more cyber attacks, something that would be under the radar, ina sense? and possibly something that is not targeting the iranian territory — something that i believe the us administration wants to avoid at all costs. at the same time, it seems — according to the latest reports — that the israelis may be refocusing their attention and particularly on rafah. so, this may lower tensions with iran, or at least remove the iranian priority,

at least for the moment. coming back to mr guterres�* words, the devastating impact on the wider civilians and other attack would bring, what more can the international community do there? again, i think in gaza, they are basically two elements that need to be done. i mean, the first is increase the access of humanitarian aid. it seems the israelis have improved that access in the last ten days, though the ngos and the un actually put that into question. but the israeli government says that it is increasing the access. the other aspect is the ceasefire, the negotiations on the hostage release and which have been conditioned to the ceasefire. so far,again, we have seen some indications of frustrations

on many of the parties that are involved in these discussions. qatar, for the first time, expressed its frustrations. we know the frustrations on the us administration on this. so, before any improvement on those two elements, the access to the humanitarian aid and the ceasefire hostage release negotiations — i don't think there is much that the international community can do. jean—loup samaan. turning our attention to the us next. all 12 jurors have now been selected to assess the guilt or innocence of donald trump in his criminal trial over the coming weeks. mr trump faces charges of falsifying accounts to hide hush money paid to an adult film star. he has pleaded not guilty. our correspondent nada tawfik sent this update from outside the court. now we do have the 12 jurors who will be deciding donald trump's fate in his first criminal trial.

they are seven men and five women, and it really comes after a day of twists and turns, just hours after two other jurors were abruptly excused. one, a young woman, who said she felt intimidated after her identity was figured out by family and friends. and she said she didn't think she could be impartial and fair — that outside opinions could affect her decision—making in the courtroom. another was a gentleman that prosecutors were concerned hadn't been forthright about his criminal history. he was excused by the judge but outside of court, he said he wanted to serve, so he wasn't happy with that decision. but the 12 jurors, those that we do have seated now, they are a diverse group, different ethnicities, differentjobs — everyone works from lawyers, physical therapists, in finance, a security engineer, in sales, a recent college graduate. one noted that they even read the bbc. and donald trump looked on as they were sworn

in and they said they could be fairand impartial. but here's what he said outside of court. the whole world is watching this hoax. you've got a da that's out of control. you have a judge that's highly conflicted. the whole thing is a mess. and you have the leading candidate and leading crooked joe biden, he's the one that should be on trial. he's a crook — we've got a crooked president. the process started to move along after both sides ran out of what are called �*strikes' — they're able to get rid of a jurorfor any reason — and one woman had even said that she didn't quite like donald trump's persona. and while donald trump's lawyers objected to her being on thejury for cause, the judge says it wasn't about how she felt about him as a person but whether she could be impartial. now, another issue that will be taken care of at a hearing next week is whether donald trump broke a limited gag order

when he posted tyhat urors —— thatjurors were liberals trying to get on to influence his case. let's turn our attention to india now, where the first phase of its election — a 44—day democratic exercise to elect a new government — is about to start. it will be the world's biggest election with nearly a billion people eligible to vote. polling will run across the country in seven phases over the next six weeks. meghan owen takes a look at the scale of it. around i billion people are eligible to vote in this year's indian election. that's the equivalent to one in eight people around the world. now, it's a mammoth election which requires a huge effort. this year, we'll see 15 million polling officials and security staff, 400,000 vehicles and 5.5 million electronic voting machines. let's take a closer look at the voters. they make up the equivalent of the populations of the us, russia, the uk, belgium, france, japan and brazil. let's take a closer look at the make—up of those voters.

in red, we can see a small percentage of first—time voters. the majority, in green, are aged 30 to sa. and a small percentage are elderly. and they, for the first time will be able to vote at home via postal vote. now, india is keen that everybody gets a chance to have their say this year — in fact, according to the chief election commissioner, he said: he's not wrong. let's look at this photo here. this is a group of porters taking some voting stations up to a remote area in west bengal. now, because of the sheer volume of people, they are having to stagger the voting this year. so,there will be seven polling dates and the counting of the votes will happen on the fourth ofjune.

china's economy is facing its biggest economic challenge in two decades. the so—called factory of the world is struggling to recover from years of covid lockdowns and a global economic downturn. many western firms are worried that low—cost chinese—made goods will force them out of business. laura bicker has been to the country's manufacturing hub. ren wenbing is a lifelong factory worker who's helped forge china's rise. this is your home? everything he owns is behind this door. but as china's economy falters, the last firm he worked for closed without warning, leaving him without his redundancy pay, which will take years to earn back. translation: it's hard to find newjobs. - we are old and we don't have many skills. most companies only hire younger people.

he spent 16 years of his life in what is now a concrete shell. even in the wreckage, he can remember the furniture assembly line. this factory was his family's future. a pay cheque sent to his village home, for children he couldn't afford to travel to see. i feel reluctant to part with this place. i feel heartbroken. i've spent so many years here and now, this place has become like this. all the workers feel astonished and are disappointed and we grieve. prolonged covid lockdowns and bitter trade wars have chipped away at the pillars of china's economy, so the country has changed course.

new technology and a new robotic workforce is taking over and the made in china brand is at the heart of the world's drive towards renewables. you're about to get a clear view of china's capacity to build. china dominates the world's solar panel market. 80% of the world's solar panels are made here. in fact, they've installed more in one year than the us have in a decade, but that has both brussels and washington worried. many in the west say china is making too much of the world's green tech. they accuse beijing of giving firms state hand—outs. that means china's goods are so cheap, it's driving western brands out of business. and what do you think of, like, the capacity in china to produce this kind of green energy? right now, i think 80—90% of the energy storage equipment are designed and manufactured in china, so we are leading the market in the whole world.

china is helping the world capture the sun, but at a cost. this feat cannot save its workforce and the west wants its dependence on china to end so now, once again, trade tensions threaten to cast a shadow over east—west relations. laura bicker, bbc news, dongguan. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

you're live with bbc news. to the italian island of capri, where aid to ukraine dominated discussions on day two of talks between g7 foreign ministers. ukraine's foreign minister dmytro kuleba also joined those talks, and said there needs to be a change in strategy if kyiv is going to fight off russia's continued aggression. our correspondent jessica parker is there and sent this report.

a majorfocus here is ukraine's calls for more air defence systems. the nato secretary—general, jens stoltenberg is here in capri. he said earlier there is an urgent critical need, that russia is pushing on the whole front line whilst carrying out waves of air strikes. but, look, this is a g7 foreign ministers meeting — ukraine's foreign minister is here but it's not a formal weapons pledging session. that being said, they can discuss, they can coordinate. but speaking to officials today, the mood on this issue overall is somewhat downbeat. causing a bit more optimism, though, is the prospect of a vote in congress on the long—stalled us aid package to ukraine of $60 billion. that's certainly being talked up here. they are looking, though, at other ways to raise money for ukraine and one idea that's been kicking about for quite some

time now, seen as potentially legally quite tricky, is using frozen russian assets. specifically, according to people i've been speaking to, whether they could use the interest from those assets to effectively channel money to ukraine. but we don't expect any final decisions on that here, it's something that's been indicated that you could see maybe being proposed at the g7 leaders' meeting later this year. let's take a look at some other stories in the headlines. kenya's president, william ruto, has confirmed that the defence chief, general francis ogolla, has been killed in a helicopter crash. nine other people died in the crash, in the rift valley in the west of the country. yemen has become the latest gulf country to be hit by a torrential rain storm that's swept across the region. one person was killed when roads, farms and businesses were flooded in an area around the port city of mukalla. the same storm has killed at least 19 people in the gulf. germany has warned russia it won't tolerate moscow's

attempts to recruit agents and carry out attacks on german soil. two men were arrested in bavaria on suspicion of spying for russia and planning sabotage attacks on military sites which assist ukraine. russia says there's no evidence for the allegations. a new study suggests that nearly half of china's major cities are sinking under their own weight. researchers used satellite data to assess 80 two major urban areas. —— 82 major urban areas. they found that 45% were sinking by more than 3mm per year. one in six were sinking by more than 10mm per year. as well as geology and the weight of buildings, the researchers say that extracting water in city areas is the major cause. coal mining and urban transportation systems are also to blame. but they say government action can tackle the issue, as was done injapan in the 19705. head to our website for lots more on that story —

just head to bbc.com/news or use the bbc news app. do check it out. now, a question for you — how many ballerinas can dance on pointe in one place? take a look at this. three, two, one, go! hundreds of young dancers in white tutus gathered in new york's famous plaza hotel to try and break the world record for dancing on tippy toes in one place for a full minute. the dancers were aged from 9 to 19 and from the youth america grand prix ballet scholarship programme. this is the moment they broke the record. and three, two, one! cheering and applause. the world record total

of dancers is now 353, breaking the previous record of 306. congratulations to them all. taylor swift is due to release her latest album later today, and it's hotly anticipated by her legions of fans — so much so that it seems to have already leaked online. mark savage reports. taylor swift is the biggest—selling musician in the in the world and she's in the middle of a record—breaking tour that's made her into a billionaire. so, fans were surprised when she used the grammy awards this february to announce an album of new material called the tortured poets department. for the last couple of weeks, she's been dropping hints about the lyrics online. then, this happened. why am i seeing people posting lea ks to taylor swift's new album on tiktok, just publicly?! what?! the leak, which hasn't been officially confirmed, sent fans into a frenzy with many pledging to wait for the official release. and that's not cool. just wait 36 more hours. like, we've waited this long.

i think most people will want to wait because part of the fun of being a fan of something is everyone at the same time listening to it and reacting to it at the same time and sort of getting those first—hand reactions. but i'm sure people will secretly be listening and not telling anyone! # it's me, hi. # i'm the problem, it's me...# the leak is undoubtedly an inconvenience for taylor swift, but she won't be losing too much sleep. the same thing happened with her last album midnight, and it went on to sell more than six million copies in just eight weeks. mark savage, bbc news. before we go, have a look at these stunning pictures from iceland. a time—lapse video has captured a volcano in iceland spewing ash and clouds of smoke against the backdrop of the northern lights. the volcano has erupted several times this year, leading to a state of emergency being declared in southern

iceland in march. the northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, is caused by the interaction of the solar wind — a stream of charged particles escaping the sun — and earth's magnetic field and atmosphere. that's all for now. stay with bbc news. hello, there. some beautiful rainbows spotted again on thursday, particularly across parts of scotland, such as here in aberdeenshire. and there will be more rainbows on friday with sunshine and showers still very much the theme of the day but lots more dry weather to come in the forecast as we head through the weekend and into the start of next week now with high pressure starting to edge in from the west, killing off some of those showers by the time we get to the end of the afternoon.

it's a cloudy, mild start to the day across england and wales. it's a little brighter further north across scotland and northern ireland. the focus of the showers gradually shifting further southwards as we head through the afternoon across the midlands, down through central southern england. now, there will be quite a brisk and a chilly northerly to northwesterly wind blowing, lightening again by the time we get to the end of the day. and quite a range of temperatures, too — just eight celsius in aberdeenshire with that northerly wind but 15 celsius across the south—west of england. now, as we head through friday night, the skies will clear and away from north sea—facing coasts, which stay rather cloudy and breezy, then we could again see a touch of frost with temperatures dropping back to low single figures, so another chilly start to the weekend. now, the weekend — a lot of dry weather. in fact, it is looking mostly dry. we'll see some rain across scotland and there will be quite a bit of cloud around at times, especially towards the east, and a bit of east—west split in terms of temperature. with that high pressure over us, we're drawing in quite

a chilly north—easterly wind, so those north sea—facing coasts. so here, it is always going to feel cooler and there will be quite a lot of cloud around as well — the north sea really quite cold at this time of year. so, west is best in terms of sunshine amounts and temperature, certainly. now, as we head through saturday, there's a warm front gradually easing its way across the far north of scotland. this will bring some cloud, some outbreaks of rain. further south, it is largely dry but cloudy, drizzly perhaps towards these north sea—facing coasts. best of the sunshine out towards the west — it will get to 1a or 15 celsius perhaps here. some of the cloud could break up a little further eastwards, too, and that's also true on sunday, but temperatures towards these eastern coastal areas will really struggle to get much past eight or nine degrees. compare that to further west where, in parts of northern ireland, we could get to 17 degrees of northern ireland, we could get to 17 degrees perhaps. feeling warmer here.

as paul's open the world's most populous country, we take a look at what's at stake. and what's behind the decision in the united states a fast track a bill that could ban tiktok? hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai.

we start with the world's most populous country because its stars voting today. elections in india will be held over seven phases and the first one gets under way on friday across 102 of the 543 seats. my colleague send this report from the southern state. i am one of the southern state. i am one of the busiest commercial streets, the busiest commercial streets, the city is the capital of the southern indian state which sets the lawmakers of the indian parliament. also state that found itself in the middle of crucial policy decisions as well as economic discourse, making it the country's second—largest economy contributing nearly 9% to the indian gdp. it's also been a state that's attracted big foreign players, samsung, heian hyundai as well as the others to diversify beyond china. all political parties like to showcase their winds and talk about how they got on foreign investment, these elections are also being fought on crucial

economic concerns. at the